The Sewers of Paris

The Sewers of Paris is a podcast of revealing personal stories about how entertainment has changed the lives of gay men. Each week, a guest plucks a piece of entertainment from their past -- book, movies, music, shows, and more -- and answers the question: how did it change your life?

This Week's Guest: Drew Gurza

Most gay men have had the experiencing of needing to decide just how open and honest we're going to be about our lives, even when that openness is difficult for some people to hear. This week's guest makes openness about difficult topics his life's work. Andrew Gurza is the host of the podcasts Disability With Drew and Disability After Dark, in addition to being one of the organizers of a recent accessible sex party in Toronto. His mission: to demolish cultural taboos around disability and sex -- taboos that have been a nuisance ever since he first found himself attracted to masculine figures on TV.

This Week's Recommendation: The Princess Bride

Thanks again to Drew for joining me. Check out his podcasts Disability After Dark and Disability with Drew, both part of Cripple Content Creations. And you can find all his work at AndrewGurza.com.

I think everyone can identify with that longing to slip away into a fantasy realm, and so my recommendation this week is for the movie The Princess Bride. I'm of an age that it's simply expected that my cohorts can quote this film at length, but if it's somehow passed you by, stop everything -- everything -- and see this movie.

It's a story of love and violence and swashbuckling and pirates and giants that takes place inside a book inside the movie. And while the book is swashbuckling adventure, the movie around takes place within the bedroom of a boy home sick from school. Simply listening to grandfather read to him, the kid finds himself changed without ever leaving his bedroom -- at least, not physically. In his mind, he departs for a fantasy world. And when he comes back, he's still himself, but changed. Or maybe the world he comes back to is changed. Or maybe both.